David Baulcombe

Professor Sir David Baulcombe is a Royal Society Research Professor and the Regius Professor of Botany in the Plant Sciences Department of the University of Cambridge. He was a student in Botany at Leeds (BSc) and Edinburgh (PhD) Universities. After periods in Montreal, the University of Georgia and the Cambridge Plant Breeding Institute, he spent 20 years at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich. He joined Cambridge University in 2007. Sir David is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a foreign associate member of the US National Academy of Sciences. His awards include the 2006 Royal Medal of the Royal Society, the 2008 Lasker Award for basic biomedical sciences, the Wolf Prize for Agriculture in 2010 and the 2012 Balzan Prize. He was knighted in June 2009. Sir David’s interests center on gene silencing and epigenetics – the science of how nurture can influence nature. These topics link to disease resistance in plants and understanding of hybrids including hybrid crops. He is also interested in the application of science to develop sustainable agriculture.